This invention relates to luggage both of the wheeled variety and the foldable type adapted to transport relatively large clothing pieces such as suits and dresses with minimal wrinkling.
Luggage for transporting clothing typically takes the form of suitcases of the box or trunk style or the foldable variety known as garment carriers or garment bags. Accommodating the carrying of relatively large garment pieces such as suits, jackets, shirts, blouses, and dresses, while avoiding wrinkles, has been an ongoing problem for travelers everywhere. Traditional luggage, commonly referred to as suitcases cannot accommodate large garments such as suits or dresses without folding them to fit inside. Compression and relative friction brought on by folding and packing result in garment wrinkles and unsightly creases.
As a solution to stuffed suitcases, garment bags were introduced as a means of transporting large garments. Garment bags are widely used despite a number of problems encountered with their use. Usually the user must suffer the strain and awkwardness of reaching backward across a shoulder to grasp a hanger hook from which the unfolded garment bag is suspended. Alternatively, the garment bag may be folded for easier handling, but the clothing held therein will suffer. This is because garment bags along with their contents require doubling or folding to a size that, at most, is half their overall length. The objective is to make garment bags just large enough to accommodate suits and dresses, yet small enough to be carried reasonably conveniently, and to permit them to be brought aboard a commercial flight. Occasionally, airline flight personnel will permit hanging the garment bag during flight, but typically the bag must be folded and stuffed into an overhead compartment, where they often are subjected to crushing pressure from adjacent bags of other passengers. The garment bag suffers similar distress in the trunks of taxicabs or the luggage hold of buses.
Another problem with respect to garment bags is they typically add to the luggage load for a user who already is struggling with lifting and managing a regular suitcase or duffle bag. The added load can be inconvenient, tiring and uncomfortable. Besides that, more than one “carry-on” item often is not permitted onboard an airplane. An undesirable outcome is that the “soft” or delicate garment bag may be relegated to bruising transport within the airplane's luggage hold.
A relatively recent development has been luggage with wheels and retractable handles, of the type exemplified by Rollaboard®. Early wheeled luggage of this type is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,487 issued to Plath. Rather than having to carry the suitcase, the Plath invention enables a user to pull the suitcase in such a way that the load is carried on small wheels or rollers. This type of suitcase has become extremely popular due to the obvious improvement in comfort and convenience to the user.
The most popular types of rolling suitcases are those sized to meet the carry-on width/length/girth limits imposed by airline regulations. Generally speaking, present standards, dictate that the carry-on suitcase will not exceed 22″×14″×9,″ although such a designated, chosen or dictated dimension can vary slightly from airline to airline and country to country. When it comes to packing and transporting clothing of various shapes and sizes, roller-equipped or wheeled suitcases which, by design, are relatively small, suffer from the same deficiency or inadequacy of larger, non-wheeled suitcases. That is, wheeled suitcases cannot accommodate large garments without considerable folding and compression.
Manufacturers have tried to combine the convenience of the smaller, wheeled and non-wheeled suitcase with the larger clothes-carrying capacity of a garment bag. They accomplish this by incorporating a garment bag within the confines of the suitcase itself. This allows suits and large garments to be inserted inside the suitcase. Luggage of this nature is known in the industry as a suiter. Such a suitcase eliminates the need to carry two separate pieces of luggage; but, the typical suiter is by no means small. In fact it wields a sizable footprint and significant heft. Besides that, the internal garment bag feature consumes valuable packing space. Alas, the so-called suiter suffers the problem common to regular suitcases, garment bags and the smaller wheeled versions: larger articles of clothing must be folded, and often into several folded layers.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,402, Godshaw describes soft-sided luggage with separate compartments in a saddle-bag configuration designed to fit on top of a wheeled type suitcase. An opening in the soft-sided luggage allows it to fit over a handle of wheeled suitcase so as to extend downwardly along the suitcase sides. One embodiment of this design is a garment bag to hold suits. This luggage carries a number of disadvantages.
While the construction contemplated in the Godshaw patent allows clothing to be carried on the outside of wheeled luggage so as to be portably moveable therewith, it faces the same deficiency as previously described luggage because it requires large garments such as suits to be folded to fit into a garment bag portion of the Godshaw luggage. The resultant combination is bulky and heavy, and must be disassembled to afford access the interior of the wheeled suitcase.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,624,026, Chernoff demonstrates the concept of rolling clothing around a cylinder to reduce wrinkles. This concept of rolling or wrapping large garments for storage, rather than the traditional folding process has been a major step in the right direction since it eliminates many of the problems of folding, thus going a long way in avoidance of wrinkles. However, a garment bag of this type still must be carried since it is in no way associated with wheels.
While the above discussed patent references as well as others of record in the above noted parent application relate to the present invention disclosed and claimed herein, none has the distinguishing features of the present inventive apparatus and method to be discussed below. More specifically, it is believed that prior to this invention there existed no wheeled luggage adapted to carry relatively larger articles of clothing such as suits dresses and the like in such a way that avoids abusive folding required to fit said clothing inside (or to drape it across) wheeled luggage. In other words, none of the prior art includes the novel features of the present inventive and method disclosed and claimed herein.